SNAP Time, Speed, Distance and Trains Previous Year Questions

SNAP Time, Speed, Distance and Trains PYQ, free to download as a 36-page PDF. The bank carries 25 solved questions from the 2006 to 2025 papers and takes roughly two days to work through, so split it across average speed and trains.

Every question keeps the year it was asked and the options exactly as printed. An answer key follows the questions, then a full worked solution for all 25.

How the Answer Key Was Prepared

Worth stating plainly, because it is unusual. Symbiosis does not release an official answer key for SNAP, and the question papers we work from carry the questions only.

Every answer in this booklet was therefore worked out by our team from first principles, not copied from an official key. Each numeric answer was independently reproduced using exact fraction arithmetic and checked against the printed option list before publication.

Each solution shows the full reasoning, so you can follow the working rather than take the letter on trust.

What the 25 Questions Cover

This is the largest single arithmetic topic in SNAP's quant section, and the widest in range: the same 25 questions run from a one-line average-speed calculation to a pair of trawlers on perpendicular courses.

• Average speed across legs of unequal length, which appears in four separate papers
• Trains crossing platforms, men and each other, in both the same and opposite directions
• Boats and streams, where the still-water rate is half the sum of the two journey rates
• Races and beats, where a lead in metres converts into a ratio of speeds
• Late-and-early problems, where two arrival errors bracket one scheduled time
• Meeting problems, including one where the two travellers start two hours apart

The Six Moves That Solve Almost All of Them

Across the 25 questions the same handful of moves keeps working. Naming them makes the section much faster.

• Average speed is total distance over total time, never the average of the individual speeds
• Passing a standing man covers only the train's own length, which unlocks nearly every platform question
• Speeds add when two bodies move in opposite directions and subtract when they move the same way
• Over a fixed distance speed and time are inversely proportional, so a 4/5 speed means a 5/4 time
• Late and early add together, because they sit on opposite sides of one scheduled time
• Substituting hours per kilometre for speed turns awkward pairs of journeys into plain linear equations

When the Honest Answer Is "None of These"

One question in this set resolves to an option saying none of the printed values is correct, and its arithmetic is worth following closely.

A train breaks down after 150 km and continues at three-fifths speed, arriving 8 hours late. Had the breakdown happened 360 km farther along, it would have been only 4 hours late.

Running at three-fifths speed multiplies the time by five-thirds, so the delay is two-thirds of the normal running time for the remaining stretch. The two conditions give a total distance of 870 km, against options of 780, 880 and 720.

Two Questions Worth Doing First

If time is short, start here. Each teaches a move the rest of the set reuses.

2018, which train is further from Chennai. A fast train and a slow train leave opposite ends at the same moment and meet somewhere along the route. The speeds decide where they meet, but at that instant both occupy the same point, so neither is further from Chennai. It rewards reading the question rather than reaching for a formula.

2019, a constant walker against an accelerating one. One traveller walks at a steady 8 km/hr while the other covers 4 km in the first hour, 5 in the second and so on. Setting the linear distance plus the arithmetic series equal to the 144 km gap gives a quadratic that resolves cleanly at nine hours, exactly midway.

Watch SNAP Time, Speed and Distance PYQs Solved

Source: MBA Pathshala

How to Use the Answer Key and Solutions

Attempt the whole set before checking anything. The layout is built so an answer cannot be glimpsed by accident.

• Do the whole set in one timed sitting, allowing about ninety seconds each
• Mark the answer key in one pass, right or wrong only
• Read the solution for every miss and every lucky guess
• Each solution opens with a one-line quick solution, so you can stop there and retry

Traps These Questions Are Built Around

A handful of errors account for most lost marks here, and several questions exist only to catch them.

• Averaging the individual speeds instead of dividing total distance by total time
• Reading "one-third of the remainder" as one-third of the whole journey
• Treating late and early as a difference rather than a sum
• Inverting the wrong way, so a 4/5 speed is taken to give a 4/5 time
• Scaling the combined length of two trains when only one of them grew longer

Two questions in this bank are near-identical aeroplane problems set two years apart, in 2013 and 2014, which is a useful reminder that SNAP does repeat itself; we have kept the 2014 version and noted the repeat here rather than shipping the same working twice.

For the rest of the section, the SNAP Averages, Mixtures and Alligation PYQs and the SNAP Permutations, Combinations and Probability PYQs cover the other repeated quant topics in the same format.